Super Anti-Spyware has some great features. They include:

• Repair Broken Internet Connections
• Detect and Remove Spyware
• Light on System Resources
• Real Time Blocking
• Schedule scans
• First Chance Prevention

Give it a try and let me know what you think about this software package.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Cost: Free (Pro version US$29.95)
Website: http://www.superantispyware.com/

Have you ever bought a game and then couldn’t play it because your video card was outdated?

The guys over at System Requirements Lab have a cool little applet that will analyze your system and tell you if your computer meets the minimum and recommended system specs.

The use of this applet is very straight forward. Follow the link and click “Can you Run it?”, select the game and allow access to the applet to analyze your PC. The site will give you two results.

1. Minimum requirement – can your PC actually run it.
2. Recommended specs – does your PC meet or exceed the recommended spec.

The whole process takes about a minute and it will tell you if your computer meets the requirements or needs some upgrades to play that game you have been eying.

Rating: 5 out of 5
Cost: Free
Website: www.systemrequirementslab.com

I recently ran across a great little utility called AutoSave. You guessed it, the utility allows you to schedule automatic saving of your documents. You can schedule AutoSaver to save your documents from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. If your program works with CTRL-S to save your work, then AutoSaver will work.

Rating: 4 out of 5
Cost: Free
Website: http://www.door2windows.com/autosaver-save-the-file-you-are-working-on-automatically/

Microsoft recently announced a new tool called WebMatrix. As their tag line suggests it is everything you need to build websites.

Some of the features for WebMatrix are:

• Small but complete package
• Simple user interface
• Database made simple with SQL Compact
• Simple site publishing

If you have had a chance to try out WebMatrix please post your experiences.

Rating: 4 out of 5
Cost: Free
Website: http://www.asp.net/webmatrix

Here are some apps that I use on a regular basis. Let me know if you also find these apps useful.

LastPass

One of the best password managers on the market today. This program gives you some great features such as:

• One Master password
• Automatic form filling
• Automatic login
• Synchronize across browsers / computers
• Secure note taking
• Generate secure passwords
• Share logins with your friends
• One time passwords to access Master account (great for cyber cafes)
• Universal access – access your passwords from anywhere

Here is a quick video that I found on YouTube that shows you how to use LastPass:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=obzh77-nD-I

Rating: 5 out of 5
Cost: Free
Website: http://www.lastpass.com/

Revo Uninstaller

Excellent Uninstaller.

This is one of the best Uninstallers I have used. It cleanly removes all left over registry entries and files from your system that were associated with the program you un-installed.

Here is a YouTube video that someone posted that demonstrates downloading and using Revo:

Rating: 5 out of 5
Cost: Free
Website: http://www.revouninstaller.com/

Xmarks

Great bookmark sync program for IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome. It also offer a password sync between computers. Similar to LastPass but with less features. For a bookmark sync tool, I have not found a better piece of software. Below is a YouTube video showing you Xmarks.

Rating: 5 out of 5
Cost: Free
Website: http://www.xmarks.com/

Handbrake

Handbrake is an open source multi-platform video transcoder. It supports almost any DVD-like source, including some .VOB and .TS files. Some features include:

• Chapter selection
• Subtitles
• Integrated bitrate calculator
• Picture deinterlacing, cropping and scaling
• Live Video Preivew

I came across this since video on YouTube where someone did up a nice Handbrake tutorial.

Rating: 5 out of 5
Cost: Free
Website: http://handbrake.fr/

VLC Media Player

VLC is probably the last media player you will ever need. It supports almost every codec and plays almost every type of media including but not limited to:

• DVDs
• (S)VCDs
• Audio CDs
• Web Streams
• TV Cards
• Regular AVI files
• And a lot more…

Rating: 5 out of 5
Cost: Free
Website: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

If you have a utility that is useful, please share it by commenting on this post. Looking forward to hearing from you.

*** Looks like they have fixed this issue on Hulu, this no longer works ***

Recently there was an article posted on Lifehacker that discussed on how to watch Hulu in Canada without a VPN or Proxy. Below is a step by step walkthrough showing you how to achieve this using Firefox and a plugin. Thanks go to Lifehacker for posting this information originally. The Lifehacker post also talks about having to block a port, I have tested this and found that this modification is not needed in order to get Hulu working in Firefox.

First, start up Firefox and click on Tools –> Addons –> Get Addons. In the search box type “Modify Headers”

Once the search result comes up with the proper addon called “Modify Headers” select and click the Add to Firefox button. Restart Firefox to activate the plugin. After Firefox restarts click on Tools –> Modify Headers to access the configuration screen.

Configure Modify Headers:

Add the entry as shown above. Pick your favourite US IP address. For irony, I decided to use one of hulu.com IP addresses. Should be interesting to see what happens when they try and geo-fence that address.

Here is what the configuration should look like once complete:

Make sure you see a green dot beside the entry to indicate that the header modification is enabled.

Now re-start Firefox and browse to hulu.com. You should not receive any geo-fencing messages.

Source used for this post: LifeHacker Article

PS: This hack also works for youtube.com/shows

*Update* – Some people have to block port 1935 in order to get this to work. Below are some method you can use to block that port.

Method 1: Use your router to do the port blocking. Here is a linksys example:

1. Log into your Linksys router. Click “Access Restrictions”
2. Enter a new Policy Name. I used: “Block 1935″
3. Set the Status to “Enabled”
4. Make sure the access restriction is set to “Allow”
5. Under Schedule make sure “Everyday” and “24 hours” are checkmarked
6. Under Blocked Applications we need to add port 1935 to the application list. We do this by filling in the Application Name, Port Range, Protocol Field and clicking the add button. I used the following settings: Application Name: Flash, Port Range: 1935 to 1935, Protocol Field: Both
7. Your entry will now show under the Applications. Select it and click the right arrow button to move it to the Blocked List. It should look something like the image below.
8. Click the “Save Settings” at the bottom of the page and you are done. Your new policy is in place.

Method 2: The following link takes you to a post to show you how to block TCP/UDP ports in Windows. Block Windows Ports

You can discuss this post here: Watch Hulu in Canada

*** Looks like they have fixed this issue on Hulu, this no longer works ***

yourmorningcoffee.ca is back after a nasty vm server crash with a lot of new features and changes. First and foremost I have moved the site to my regular host for stability. In this post I would like to talk about what I used in order to create this website. There is a lot of software available in order to create blogs. My goal is to make this site a little more interactive then just daily or weekly blog posts. Everyone is encouraged to create an account and participate by commenting on blog entries or posting on the forums.

During the course of this project some of my friends (you know who you are) approached me and asked: So Harry, how exactly did you create this site?

Here is a list of the different pieces:

• WordPress
• SimplePress forum plugin
• Mystique theme
• Akismet plugin for a spam filter
• WordPress site stats plugin
• stormhosts.com for my website hosting services

Looking forward to hearing from everyone.